The Belgium arm of global insurer Allianz, and Monument Re, have agreed to transfer a closed book of classical life retail insurances together with 4.500 mortgage loans to Monument Assurance Belgium (MAB).
The transaction, which will transfer the related operations within 18 months after regulatory approvals, includes a portfolio of 95.000 policies with technical provisions of €1.4 billion under Solvency II and represents an attempt to minimise the impact of the transfer for both clients and brokers.
Under the agreement, all related assets and liabilities of the respective portfolio will be transferred to MAB, with protection of the policyholder rights.
The sale furthers Allianz’s strategy in Belgium to actively manage its insurance portfolio towards modern life insurance products.
For Monument Re the transaction marks a milestone in the realisation of its closed life consolidation strategy for the Belgian market.
“With this sale Allianz creates leverage to grow. It will further reduce our operational complexity and strengthen our already solid financial position,” Kathleen Van den Eynde, Chief Executive Officer Belgium of Allianz Benelux.
“With its strong track record in acquiring and integrating policies and policyholders, we believe MAB is the ideal candidate to take over this portfolio. Allianz remains fully committed to Belgium and this transaction is consistent with our priorities to serve customers with our core innovative unit-linked and protection solutions.
“We will focus on continuing our growth path in Life, Health, Employee Benefits and further developing our Property-Casualty offering. We look forward to achieving our market ambitions together with our brokers.”
Manfred Maske, CEO of Monument Re Group, added, “We are pleased to announce this transaction, which remains subject to regulatory approval. We look forward to welcoming the policyholders to Monument and would like to take the opportunity to assure them of our commitment to maintaining the high quality service and security that they have enjoyed at Allianz.
“We view Belgium as a key market for Monument Re and we are very pleased to now have the opportunity to take a significant step in realizing our ambitions. Following earlier acquisitions of four other Belgian portfolios this transaction with Allianz helps us to substantially increase scale and confirms Monument Assurance’s position as a leading consolidator in the Belgian market.”
